


My Youth Is Yours

by arthur_pendragon



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Canon Era, De-Aged Arthur Pendragon, M/M, angst (I think)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 09:04:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14808332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon
Summary: Arthur is sixteen winters old and it hurts.(Arthur has been cursed to turn back to his sixteen-year-old self. He can't do anything about it, or his intense feelings for a manservant he doesn't recognise.)





	My Youth Is Yours

**Author's Note:**

> written for [this prompt](https://kinksofcamelot.livejournal.com/1806.html?thread=242446) at Kinks of Camelot

Arthur is sixteen winters old and it hurts.

His arms and legs all ache with growing pains. His chainmail is an unwearable, loose fit on him and he has a majestic sword he can lift but no longer wield. His nose is too big for his face and his crooked teeth make him self-conscious, afraid to laugh. His breeches tent every few hours at the slightest provocation (dark, red lips and keen blue eyes and cheekbones he _wants_ to cut himself on) and the knowing, sympathetic glances he gets from his knights—now years older than him, all of them—make him want to vomit into his chamberpot and curl up in bed until this enchantment unravels and he is the mighty King Arthur Pendragon again, with all the memories of his supposed achievements and the manservant who apparently has devoted his life to him.

“Moping again, are we?” Merlin says. Arthur sits up hastily and pretends he was reading some document.

“That’s a list of names you called Sir Gwaine yesterday evening, I wrote them down for your enjoyment,” Merlin notes, grinning as he sits down across Arthur at his mealtime table and plucks the parchment from his hands. “He was quite pleased to be called a—”

“Shut up,” Arthur begs, inching closer to the table lest his provocation see that the mere hint of his breath fanning across Arthur’s body sends Arthur into an overheated tizzy. “Shut up, and leave me in peace.”

“Of course I’m not going to do that,” Merlin answers. “You’re my best friend—despite what you always used to say—and I could never leave you to wallow in your misery alone.”

Arthur’s lips purse. Merlin’s never had to face pitying looks from _servants_ before. Merlin’s never had to talk to Gaius about spots on his face or sleepless nights (from wanting someone badly but fearing retribution even worse, from wanking so hard the aftershocks carry him through till dawn, from hiding and lying transparently to Merlin about the stains). Merlin has never had to be an ugly, sixteen-year-old king.

Merlin sees something of Arthur’s bitterness in his expression, because his own softens and he extends a hand to Arthur. “Come over here.”

Arthur chokes on his own spit, feeling heat flare up the back of his neck. “No,” he croaks. “No. I’m not your Arthur.”

“Yes, you are,” Merlin says patiently. “You just don’t remember it.”

“Your Arthur was a glorious dream. I’m just a—I’m just a brat who doesn’t know what it takes to be king.” Uther Pendragon’s words ring in Arthur’s ears as if he shouted them at him just yesterday. Arthur can’t quite believe he’s dead. “Leave me in peace, _Mer_ lin, and I swear to you, on my life, I shall attempt to resume my duty from the morrow, with my queen and the other councillors.”

“Gwen’s managing just fine,” Merlin says. “You just need to wait this out, Arthur. Find ways of filling your time that don’t involve making life-changing decisions for a kingdom, while Gaius and I work on a cure.”

Arthur makes the mistake of glancing at Merlin. Merlin’s black hair is particularly stark against his pale skin this evening, one side lit gold by the firelight and glimmering. His lips look full, wine-red as if he crushed cherries and painted his mouth with the juice; they must taste sticky-sweet, delicious—

“Come over here, Arthur,” Merlin whispers, proffered hand steady across the table.

Angry tears collect at the corners of Arthur’s eyes. His frustration is boundless. His life is a chaotic jumble, a living nightmare where no one respects him or cares for him, where the one person he could have relied upon to be his rebel partner, to suffer through life with is currently for some reason plotting his _murder_ with an uncle he didn’t know existed. And this fucking manservant whom his father somehow employed, whom his older self somehow kept around has the audacity to _proposition_ him. As if he can see right into Arthur’s soul through his eyes and behold the inferno of desire that’s consumed Arthur ever since he first laid eyes on this concerned, gorgeous, beautiful man, too good for Arthur, much too good.

“Fuck off,” Arthur breathes. “You want the other Arthur.”

“You’re both one and the same.”

“I’m not him,” Arthur spits. “I’m don’t—fucking—look like him—”

“How would you know?”

Arthur groans in anguish. Merlin’s just fucking humouring him. Arthur is a flagrant mess of emotion and through this miasma, something buried deep in his soul calls out to the servant in a chair before him. The servant who is surer in his own skin than Arthur, with all his princely bearing, has ever been.

For the first time that night, something like uncertainty enters Merlin’s eyes. He gulps, and looks away.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I misunderstood.”

He makes to stand and Arthur can’t bear it anymore, snaps. “Don’t you dare move.

“That’s an order.”

Merlin pauses and sits back down. He’s somewhere around twenty-six now, lean and strong and lithe. The diffidence in his eyes is killing Arthur.

Weeks and weeks of this over-young body, months of pining for the manservant who sees a king in him, all coalesce into one pinprick of courage that makes Arthur stand and walk over to Merlin, straddle him in a swift action that reminds him of a manoeuvre he tried to execute with Excalibur this morning.

Merlin smiles softly up at him.

“Sire,” he whispers.

“Kiss me,” Arthur demands. It’s all he does. Demand and demand until everyone around him is hollow, left with nothing more to give—everyone except Merlin, who will smilingly go to the woods and come back a day later with fresh out-of-season plums, who will clean all fourteen pairs of Arthur’s rankest hunting boots without complaint, who will put on chainmail and armour just so Arthur can scream his throat hoarse and harmlessly swing Excalibur at him.

Who will let Arthur shove him into walls and breathe him in and run away, leaving him tired in Arthur’s wake.

So Merlin kisses him, and it’s everything Arthur’s been fantasising about for the past few weeks. He doesn’t remember how or how much he’d kissed people as a sure, fit crown prince or a mighty king, but at sixteen winters all he can remember is his father glaring coldly down at him, putting him in the stocks—the stocks, where people averted their eyes from him and children cried and threw no fruit—for the crime of holding a servant girl in his arms and letting her brush her lips against his.

That memory is quickly erased by Merlin’s tongue, probing at Arthur’s mouth as he looks at Arthur with eyes half-closed, sultry without intending to be. Arthur gasps, growing hard in mere seconds, rocking his hips against Merlin’s belly.

“I want to fuck you,” he moans into Merlin’s mouth, sinking into the crook between Merlin’s thighs and torso, thrilled that Merlin isn’t pushing him away. “So much that you won’t be able to walk for days. I want to bend you over this table and the throne and have you up against a wall, in my bed, everywhere until all this castle reminds you of is _me_ , not your stupid king.”

Merlin smiles, breaking the kiss. Arthur’s heart thuds painfully. He feels mortified, full of scorn at himself for being naïve enough to bare his heart in contradiction with all of Uther’s warnings. The thrill evaporates and he only feels small and immature.

“You want to fuck me?” Merlin says, swiping a thumb over Arthur’s spit-slick lips. Arthur stares at him, hurting, dreading the inevitable laughter. Why would Merlin want him anyway? Merlin’s spent years and years around his older self who was seemingly this paragon of nobility and grace and honour and all those royal things Uther tried to instil in him. A boy like Arthur as he is now—why would Merlin entertain his dreams for a second?

Arthur whimpers as Merlin’s hand trails downwards to settle over the tent in his loose breeches, wetted thumb rubbing slowly over the tip of his clad cock in an agonising rhythm that makes Arthur throw his head back with abandon. He feels like he’s on fire. The other fingers cup him, long and elegant, teasing and pressing on the sensitive skin behind his balls—and Arthur comes shamefully quick, clutching Merlin’s shoulders as the implication of Merlin fucking _him_ rushes in a white-hot torrent through his mind.

Merlin embraces him lovingly, cradling him through it.

Arthur hates it.

Hates that he finally feels composed in Merlin’s arms. He hates being in love.

“You can let go now,” he tells Merlin. His nose wrinkles at the stain on his breeches. He wonders if Merlin was hard, if he’s still hard, if he’ll let Arthur do something about it. “Let go.”

But Merlin’s face is hidden in Arthur’s tunic. Arthur realises with shock that Merlin is crying.

He automatically holds Merlin in return, resting trembling hands on Merlin’s nape and his chin on Merlin’s crown.

“Merlin,” he says.

“Come back.”

Arthur swallows. He clenches his jaw and fights the prickling in his eyes, shutting them tight.

“Please come back, Arthur, please,” Merlin whispers, and every emotion bleeds out of Arthur through the wound in his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading c:


End file.
